{"id":262,"date":"2026-05-24T17:09:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T17:09:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=262"},"modified":"2026-05-24T17:09:53","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T17:09:53","slug":"us-force-has-been-used-against-drug-traffickers-before-but-trumps-plan-is-a-dangerous-escalation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=262","title":{"rendered":"US force has been used against drug traffickers before \u2013 but Trump\u2019s plan is a dangerous escalation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The US president, Donald Trump, signed a secret directive on August 8 authorising the Pentagon to use military force against some Latin American drug cartels. To longtime observers of US foreign policy in the region, his directive only came as a partial surprise. <\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s insistence on personal loyalty from ambassadors could crimp US foreign\u00a0policy<\/a><\/p>\n

During his most recent presidential election campaign, Trump proposed bombing Mexico \u2013 although, amid the flurry of claims and promises, this extreme posture almost went unnoticed. And Mexican national security analysts have been warning for the past few years that use of US military force against Mexico is becoming increasingly likely. <\/p>\n

On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order designating cartels and some other criminal groups \u201cforeign terrorist organisations\u201d. For past US administrations, such a designation has often acted as a prelude to \u2013 and partial justification for \u2013 violence.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s executive order defined cartels as a \u201cnational security threat beyond that posed by traditional organised crime\u201d. This, it added, is due to the cartels\u2019 work with international networks, their complexity and engagement in insurgency and asymmetric warfare, and their \u201cinfiltration\u201d of governments in the western hemisphere. <\/p>\n

In its report on Trump\u2019s secret directive, the New York Times highlighted how the unilateral use of military force in Latin America would represent a dangerous escalation in the region. <\/p>\n

In the past, the US has often presented its use of military force against the cartels as support for law enforcement there. It has also relied on collaboration with local governments and militaries to conduct joint operations. <\/p>\n

Brian Finucane, a former legal adviser at the US State Department, noted in the same New York Times article that any use of force would encounter domestic constraints in Washington. It would need congressional authorisations, and the US government is formally banned from attempting assassinations. This ban could only be circumvented, Finucane argued, in cases of self-defence. <\/p>\n

However, at least since the 1980s, the ban on assassination has rarely constrained US foreign policy. The so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d of successive administrations has often blended overt and covert uses of force, culminating in the killing of prominent drug traffickers.<\/p>\n

Justifying assassination<\/h2>\n

The use of force and assassination featured in the first war on drugs, declared by then-US president Richard Nixon in 1971. Journalists working on the Watergate scandal, an investigation into the administration\u2019s involvement in a break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, revealed that Nixon and his assistants had and the assassination of 150 leading drug traffickers. <\/p>\n

But the self-defence exception first emerged under the administration of Ronald Reagan (1981\u20131989). The CIA\u2019s then-director, William Casey, and its legal counsel, Stanley Sporkin, both argued that the ban on assassinations did not apply in cases of self-defence. Their argument found support in an administration that was developing a rhetoric and to pre-empt terrorism, similar to those established in the aftermath of 9\/11. <\/p>\n

Read more Lasting peace in Ukraine may hinge on independent monitors \u2013 yet Trump\u2019s 28\u2011point plan barely mentions\u00a0them<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1989, early in the George H.W. Bush administration, this precedent was enshrined in a memorandum of law: . This stated that overt or covert uses of force ordered by the president in self-defence would not constitute assassination if they targeted \u201ccombatant forces of another nation, a guerrilla force or a terrorist, or other organisations whose actions pose a threat to the security of the US\u201d.<\/p>\n

By this time, drug trafficking had replaced terrorism as a key security concern in the US, and Medell\u00edn Cartel leader Pablo Escobar was enemy number one. In April 1989, the CIA established a counter-narcotics centre, and the National Security Council soon started working on a policy review on how to deal with drug traffickers. <\/p>\n

Assassination and the use of force emerged as clear policy options. William J. Bennett, then chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), was a strong advocate of going after narcotraffickers. Bennett seemed to support the use of hit squads when he stated that same year: \u201cWe should do to the drug barons what our forces in the Persian Gulf did to Iran\u2019s navy [during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s].\u201d <\/p>\n

Bush Sr also went back to another precedent set under Reagan. Starting in the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration had argued that a \u201cmarriage of convenience\u201d had emerged between terrorists and drug traffickers. \u201cNarcoterrorism\u201d, then-secretary of state George Shultz suggested in 1987, should be considered a \u201cshadow war\u201d. <\/p>\n

In this shadow war, assassination was seen as an available option \u2013 with some in the Bush Sr government proposing that if the ban on assassination did not apply to terrorists, it should not apply to drug traffickers either. Increasing violence by the Medell\u00edn Cartel at the time, alongside the Parks Memorandum and the administration\u2019s declarations that cartels posed a national security threat, meant overt or covert use of force could be legitimised against the drug gangs too. <\/p>\n

This became the legal rationale behind the so-called \u201ckingpin strategy\u201d, which involved the DEA, CIA, US armed forces and their local allies targeting and often killing drug lords and narcotraffickers. This included the leaders of the Medell\u00edn and Cali cartels. Escobar, for example, was killed by Colombian special forces in 1993, with extensive training and intelligence support from the US.<\/p>\n

Covert and overt uses of force against \u201cnarcoterrorists\u201d in the region continued under the following US administrations. This extended to leaders of rebel groups such as the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (Farc), who were involved in drug trafficking and thus considered a threat by the US and its allies. The US role here was largely providing the technology that facilitated cross-border assassinations.<\/p>\n

So, the use of US force against drug traffickers is not without precedent. But the measures threatened by Trump would in my view represent a dangerous escalation at a time of unprecedented international crisis. They are certainly a challenge to the Mexican government, whose president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has unequivocally stated: \u201cThe US is not going to come to Mexico with the military.\u201d <\/p>\n

Several studies into the use of force in the many wars on drugs have shown that military force is not an effective tool to counter the activities of cartels. Militarisation has already contributed to more violence in Mexico, and the decapitation of cartel leadership has often only increased the degree and brutality of such violence.<\/p>\n

Read more Ukraine is under pressure to trade land for peace \u2212 if it does, history shows it might not ever get it\u00a0back<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The use of US force against drug traffickers is not without precedent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[601,327,916,600,894,914,915],"class_list":["post-262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-colombia","tag-donald-trump","tag-drug-cartels","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-give-me-perspective","tag-mexico","tag-pablo-escobar"],"yoast_head":"\nUS force has been used against drug traffickers before \u2013 but Trump\u2019s plan is a dangerous escalation - Pro Relocation Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=262\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US force has been used against drug traffickers before \u2013 but Trump\u2019s plan is a dangerous escalation - 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